How to Change the Default Zoom Percentage or Size Percent of Your Page in Microsoft Word

If you’re like most people, you’ve upgraded your monitor over the years. Maybe you went from a CRT to a flatscreen… or from a standard 3:4 monitor to the larger cinema-style formats like 16:9.

Well, with a bigger screen or a different size ratio, you probably noticed that Microsoft Word docs (I’m using Microsoft Word 2007) look smaller on the bigger screens. This is a function of the zoom slider in the lower right-hand portion of the page. It has a range from 10% to 500%. Slide it and you’ll see what happens.

So, how do you change Microsoft Word’s default settings so you can see the same size page every time you open a Word doc or start a new document? Here’s the quick solution:

Go to the File menu => click Open => then locate and open the template you want to modify (This will usually be the normal.dot template)

The file is usually located here: C:\Users\<name>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Templates where <name> is the name of the user or computer you’re on (search your computer for the Templates folder if you can’t find it)

Locate, select and open Normal.dot

Change the Zoom level (lower right) on this particular document to whatever percentage you prefer (You can also change any of the template’s text and graphics, styles, formatting, macros, AutoText entries, toolbars, menu settings, and shortcut keys)